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Hi everyone, this is Deb from Dying to Be Found. Before we get started, I just wanted to say that

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episodes contain disturbing discussions on harmful acts and crimes against animals and or humankind.

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Recordings are not intended for young or sensitive audiences due to the content nature of this

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podcast. Listener discretion is strongly advised.

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Hey everybody, this is Deb. And this is Beth. And we want to welcome you to episode 15 of Dying

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to Be Found. And this is a show that is left open to the interpretation of our listeners. If you have

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a story that you would like us to cover, please visit our website at DyingToBeFound.com, spelled

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just like you see on our logo, or you can email us at Dying the number two, the letter B found

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at gmail.com. Beth, how are you today? I'm doing great. How about you? I'm doing great too. I'm

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excited to talk about this story. We're going to be talking about Elizabeth Smart today. She's the

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14 year old girl who beat the odds when she was abducted from her home in the middle of the night

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back in 2002. Do you remember the story, Beth? Very well, very well. And I followed it. So I'm

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very glad that you are, you approached this story and I'm very looking forward to listening to what

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you have to tell me. It looks like that this is going to be a three parter. Wow, you must have

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found a lot of information. There is a ton of information and I feel like I really need to do

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this justice for the family, for Elizabeth. Yes. So that's really all I know. If we get it into two

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parts, then I hope everybody can keep following along, but we'll see when we get there, I guess.

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All right. Okay. Anything else you want to talk about? Not today. I'm pretty quiet. Okay. We are

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going to jump in because there is a lot of information to talk about. And so let's just

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start in 2002, the Smart family resided in Salt Lake City, Utah. Ed and Lois Smart were very busy

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keeping up with six children, Beth. Wow. I couldn't imagine that is a lot. I go see our sister

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Kathy and she's got five kids and woo, you got to do that home alone and count the heads at all times.

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That's the best way I could keep up with the nieces and nephews. I know. I have to tell you

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something funny here though. When I lived on Prince Edward Island, I worked with a girl. I might have

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mentioned this before. She was the oldest of 15 and her husband was the youngest of 16. Holy cow.

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Families were very big back then. Yeah. That's beautiful. I don't know what to say. That's,

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I can't imagine even having six kids, let alone the amount that you just talked about. Wow. All

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right. Let's talk about the Smarts. Lois and Ed had four boys and two girls. They were Andrew,

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Elizabeth, Charles, Edward, Mary Catherine, and William Smart. Elizabeth was the second oldest

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child to Ed and Lois and was born on November 3rd, 1987. The Smarts were and still are active

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members of the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints, also known as Mormons. And they resided in

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the Federal Heights suburbs of Salt Lake City, Utah. Well, early summer of 2002, the Smart family

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was very busy attending to a family member's death. Lois's dad had just passed away. So she

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was dealing with that in addition to end of school events with her kids. And Elizabeth played the

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harp. So there were concerts along with other activities that her siblings were also involved

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in. So Lois recalls that on June 4th of 2002, she was cooking dinner. And of course she had a lot on

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her mind. Her dad just passed away and she burnt some potatoes that were on the stove. Well,

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she cracked open a window in the kitchen to let the smoke out and didn't give it another thought.

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I mean, I know we've all done that. My fire alarm for some reason in my house just likes to go off

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anytime I turn on the oven. So I always open that back door to make sure that the air's flowing and

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I don't get a lot of smoke in the kitchen. So how about you? We don't really have much smoke.

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Oh, that's good. You must be a better cook than me. I'll do most of the cooking.

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I'm going to give a little timeline of events as we go along. On June 5th of 2002,

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when Elizabeth was 14 years old, she was abducted from her home in the middle of the night. Like I

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had mentioned at the very beginning. Now this happened to be the night that Elizabeth's mother

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cracked that window open in the kitchen because she burnt the potatoes. Elizabeth's sister,

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Mary Catherine went to her parents' room somewhere between 2 AM and 2.30 in the morning to say that

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someone took Elizabeth. Mary Catherine and Elizabeth shared a room so they were in close spaces

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and Mary Catherine just witnessed the whole thing. Elizabeth's parents immediately got out of bed and

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began looking around the house. Lois turned on every light inside the house as they began searching.

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This is when they went to the kitchen and discovered that the window that Lois had opened

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earlier while the screen had been cut open. Wow. Yep. So the family and the neighborhood

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began looking for Elizabeth within 15 minutes of her disappearing. And during the search,

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two of Elizabeth's brothers, Ed Jr. and Andrew, were awakened by their mothers wailing and distress

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over Elizabeth going missing. I can only imagine how distraught she was, Beth. Oh, for sure. Oh my

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gosh. Can you imagine? No, not at all. But Elizabeth's younger sister, Mary Catherine,

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told her parents point blank, you're not going to find her. Someone took her. And so that's kind of

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what they went on when this whole ordeal started. So of course the police were called and when they

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arrived, they began asking Mary Catherine questions about what happened because she seemed to be the

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only eyewitness to the ordeal. Understandable. It's two o'clock in the morning. I don't, I think

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we've said this before. I'm a hard sleeper. You're a hard sleeper. I would not wake up to any of this.

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No. Detective Corey Lyman started looking around and found that the point of entry where the

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intruder came into the house was very high up on the ground. So the kitchen was overlooking the yard,

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but whoever entered, a couple of things had to have happened. They had to have climbed up on

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something to enter the house. And in this instance, they found some chairs piled up at the bottom of

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that window, just outside the kitchen. And the window only had a 12 inch opening. So he really

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had to squeeze his way in whoever this person was. Oh my gosh. Initially the smarts home was never

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sectioned off at all whatsoever by the police. So it was not immediately treated as a crime scene.

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This just means Beth, that people in the neighborhood were coming and going because I

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just told you that the entire neighborhood was looking for Elizabeth within 15 minutes

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and family members, I'm sure were called as well. So a lot of people were coming in and out and

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nothing was ever taped off to preserve the crime scene. So that was pretty much mistake number one.

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In the documentaries that I was watching, detectives stated that whoever worked the

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graveyard shift was usually assigned to the young and inexperienced law enforcement. So this may have

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been the case as to why the house was not roped off with crime scene tape. So basically the entire

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house became contaminated beyond all hope. And according to crime scene investigators,

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they were not able to process the house like they should have when following normal protocols.

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So that was a huge mistake from the very beginning. Yes. Now I had mentioned that Mary Katherine was

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questioned as an eyewitness. Well, she was only nine years old at the time when Elizabeth was

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abducted. And again, Elizabeth was 14. So she was a few years older. Not only did she share that

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bedroom with Elizabeth, but they also shared a bed. Mary Katherine was the only witness to see what

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had happened. And she was able to account what the man said to Elizabeth while she was laying right

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next to her. The man was heard saying, if you scream, I'll shoot you. But if you don't, I won't

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harm you. It was really unclear as if this were directed towards Elizabeth or Mary Katherine,

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but that was just a direct quote coming from the abductor and what he had said when Mary Katherine

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was close by. At no point did Mary Katherine waver from her eyewitness statements the whole time that

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she was interviewed, even at the age of nine. So I'm trying to think back. What grade are you in?

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What are you really doing in your life? Are you really thinking about anything besides playing

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after school with your friends? I suppose it really depends on what your activities are and all that.

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And of course, your intellectual level, I guess. Yes. Yep. So at age nine, Beth, she was very adamant

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of what she heard and what she saw. And she did not waver from any of that. Well, Mary Katherine

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mentioned that the voice of the intruder sounded very familiar. Now this in itself sounds very

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familiar because we just covered a case exactly like this. Yes. But being nine years old, Mary

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Katherine could not place where she had heard it from. There are a couple of things that I mentioned

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at the very beginning of the story. I kind of want to get back to Ed and Lois. Number one, I mentioned

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that the Smarts came from a very large family. Well, Ed had two brothers that he was very close

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to. Their names were Tom and Edward. Now, Tom had worked for a local news station in the past and

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was able to set up a news conference within hours of Elizabeth's abduction. The news media had picked

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up on the story very quickly. So Ed was able to get the news out that night. Tom even attempted

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to get Elizabeth's picture out into the news media and the internet, but he was told he had to wait

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three hours. Why? I guess that goes along the lines, Beth, of what we've talked about several times

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with how you have to wait that 24 hours because people are adults. They can always come back. But

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in the case of a minor, I'm not really sure why you would have to wait three hours. Possibly because

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not speaking from experience, but there might've been a time or two that I have snuck out of the

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house in my life, but I've always returned. Let's put it that way. Oh, I got you. Maybe that's why

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you had to wait the three hours because kids will be kids. They'll sneak out every now and then.

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Yes. Yeah. But one statistic that I pulled up that is a little disturbing with waiting that three

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hours is that 65% of fatalities like this occur within the first three hours. And again, that goes

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back to the story we just finished. So remember that Elizabeth originally went missing somewhere,

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I'm going to say 2.30 in the morning. Right. And the news crew arrived somewhere around 6.30

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in the morning. That would be that three hour window. It's important to know too that at this

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time, the Smart Family had very little sleep to go on since this ordeal began. So they have been up

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since 2.30 in the morning looking through the neighborhood and just looking everywhere for

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Elizabeth at this point. And when the news media pulled up, you know they're going to keep them up

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for hours because they're going to want to try to get as much information as possible. Right?

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Yes, exactly. Yep. Now I had mentioned that the crime scene had been contaminated beyond repair

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since the house had not been roped off with crime scene tape. And on June 6th, by 10 o'clock in the

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morning, this would be day two now. So a whole day has passed. At 10 o'clock in the morning on June 6th,

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search parties were already forming to sweep the area surrounding the Smarts home. So many

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community members came forward to volunteer that they had somewhere between 1,800 and 2,000 actively

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looking in on the search just after this story broke. There were bikers, there were housewives,

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students, neighbors, everybody was joining in on this search for Elizabeth. And even CNN aired a

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story with Larry King Live about Elizabeth's abduction. So you know this story had to be

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getting a lot of coverage. You had just mentioned you followed it. I know I followed it. Yes. And

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there was just a ton of coverage. All family members were eventually taken to the police station

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in separate cars, including Lois, Mary Katherine, and her two brothers. Everyone continued to be

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separated once they arrived at the police station. I kind of figured, yeah, that makes sense because

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police officers know what they're doing. They're not going to keep family members all together

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because of innocent or not. I'm not saying anybody's innocent. I'm not saying anybody's guilty

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here, but innocent or not, you know, the police are going to separate everybody so that they can't

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get one story. Well, they, the police originally thought that something went down inside that house

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and all the family members were covering something up. That kind of sounds like the

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Jean-Bernier Ramsey case. So that's kind of the direction that the police were going. They didn't

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want the family members coming up with stories for each other, just in case something was going on

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and they were trying to do a cover up. They theorized that the Smart family was concocting

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a ransom motive to get themselves out of debt. Now in the research that I performed on this,

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I did not find one article stating that the Smarts were in debt. I don't have anything in

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my notes that showed that they would have even tried to pursue that motive at all. Well, eventually

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the FBI was called in and they determined that Elizabeth was chosen by her abductor. According

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to an FBI profiler, Elizabeth did not have a high sequence of traits to place her into the category

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of being abducted. Let me give you an example here. So she's 14 years old, Beth. What do 14

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year olds usually do? Get together in groups and hang out all over. Absolutely. I know I was doing

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that. I loved the roller rink when I was 14 years old. I was down there every weekend hanging out

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with my friends, but she didn't hang out at the mall. Now internet was really becoming popular

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at this time. Remember it's 2002. She didn't even frequent the internet chat rooms. She was a pretty

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well balanced 14 year old girl. She carried a strong faith. She enjoyed horses and she played

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the harp. Gosh, Beth, that's an amazing talent to be 14 years old and be able to play the harp.

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Yeah. She sounds like she really has her head on her shoulders.

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So as the search continued by day three, Ed was admitted to the hospital. He was exhausted to the

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point of collapse. He was going without sleep. I'm sure he had a ton of people that were coming to

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visit him. I had mentioned there were probably around 2000 volunteers. So you know, he had to

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have been interacting with a lot of people in that time span. Well, his bishop came to the hospital

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to give him a blessing and he basically told Ed that he needed to get up and do whatever he needed

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to do. So basically Ed went home, did what his bishop told him to do. He was taking care of

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business. He took control of the situation and his family members really stuck by him because as we

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go on, you'll see how close and supportive everyone is of each other trying to find Elizabeth at all

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costs. Right. Yeah. Well, Ed and his two brothers, David and Tom were brought in by the FBI to

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conduct polygraph tests just after five days with no sleep. I kind of want to dig into this portion

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just a little bit because Beth, news got out to the media that one of the family members had failed

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their polygraph. Polygraphs we know are not admissible in court. We had talked about that

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very briefly in our last episode and you were talking about how almost unfair it is to put

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people through these interrogations for hours upon end. Well, here's my thoughts on polygraphs.

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I know there are many people that know how to lie and get away with it. I've heard where you can

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bite your tongue, curl your toes. There are many ways of distorting the truth. So polygraphs don't

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always make sense in every situation. You're right. And in this situation, I have to agree with you on

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that because Tom said that he was hooked up to a polygraph machine for eight hours. Now remember

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Beth, that he had just gone five days without any sleep. Then he's hooked up to this polygraph,

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which lasted another eight hours. And he himself said in one of the interviews that they were

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asking questions. I'm not going to say they're leading questions, Beth, but I can see how when

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somebody might be told that they're being deceptive and these are what, yes or no questions. Tom was

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being asked questions like, have you ever told a lie? Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, Beth, have you ever

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told a lie? Oh yes. Yeah. As have I. That is human nature to tell at least a white lie, right? Okay.

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So let's talk about white lies for a moment. You have a habitual liar. You have little white lies.

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Okay. If they're going to ask a basic question, like, have you ever lied? What are you supposed

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to say to that? Well, you want, you're torn because you want to say the truth, yet you want to lie.

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A little white lie. Yeah. Well, he didn't know how to answer that because just like you and me,

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Beth, we've told a lie and I mean, we can go in circles on this conversation. He did give an

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example. He told his wife one time that he didn't like her hair. Beth, have you ever been, had anybody

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tell you that they didn't like your haircut? When I asked and I really insisted, yes.

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Now, what was your reaction? I didn't get ticked off, but I was shocked and hurt. I was very hurt.

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Okay. I'm going to say your mannerisms probably changed for a minute, wouldn't they? Yes.

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Absolutely. So adamantly, you're saying that your temperament changed. Okay. So Tom told his wife

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one day that he didn't like her hair. Well, based on her temperament and her reaction,

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he basically said in the interview that he lied to her ever since. Yes, dear, your hair, it looks

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lovely today. Okay. Little white lie, right? Yes. So we're getting back to this. Have you ever told

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a lie? How are you supposed to answer that when you're hooked up to a polygraph with no sleep?

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Exactly. That's the big question. And so that's a great example as to why polygraphs are inadmissible

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in court. I mean, it's just basically how the questions were then that you can go in so many

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different directions. To me, I don't think that they set him up to come out as deceptive, but

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that's how it turned out based on how the question was worded. This goes back to what I mentioned in

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the last episode about how the suspect is grilled for hours and hours, and then they'll end up

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breaking down and just telling the police whatever they want to hear just to get done and over with.

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Absolutely. Yes. Those false confessions. Yes. Yes. I completely agree with that. Well, Tom also

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stated that during this polygraph session, he basically had a two hour stare down with the

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police officers because they were not providing any answers to him. And his thoughts were, well,

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whatever Elizabeth is going through right now, I'm going to go through this with her and I will do

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everything that it takes to get her home. So he's just basically staring at the police officers,

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not giving them answers because they weren't giving him answers. And that kind of went on

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for a little while. I'm sure that everybody was getting a little bit frustrated here. Yes.

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So in the meantime, the FBI also developed a profile on Elizabeth's abductor. I had mentioned

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that Elizabeth was chosen. Well, special agent Mick Fennerty profile the abductor to have the

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following characteristics. First of all, they hypothesized that this was a sex crime because

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obviously she was taken in the middle of the night and they also profiled the perpetrator as a white

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male between the age of 25 and 55. And then they also deduced that he was a burglar, obviously with

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the way that he broke into the house. They compiled a list of any person who came to work at the smarts

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house at any time, which consisted of over 60 contractors. I don't know if you've seen the house

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that they lived in Beth, but it's beautiful and very large. It's kind of set within trees, but I

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can imagine that for the any work that needed to be done on that house, they would always have at

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least one or two contractors there because it was a pretty large house. Sounds nice. Well, one of the

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people on this list, his name was Richard Reese and the smarts considered him to always be friendly

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and engaging amongst the family members. Whenever he was on the premises, he would be cordial and

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chatty and anytime that he was working at their house. Well, Ed was not aware that Richard had a

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criminal record nor was he aware of the fact that he would break into the house in the night while

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the smarts were sleeping. So he was nice and cordial during the day, but he was known to break

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into their house to steal things while they were sleeping. That's crazy. Well, Mary Catherine,

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Elizabeth's sister had seen Richard on the news and questioned why he was on TV because he was a

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nice guy. She actually told her parents though, that it was not Richard who took Elizabeth.

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Reese's wife also provided him with a solid alibi and Beth, he passed a polygraph test.

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Now the police identified Reese as a career criminal, but in fact, he was in jail at the

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time that he was identified as the main suspect of Elizabeth's disappearance. Reese had a criminal

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record of burglary and had even attempted to kill a police officer during a pharmacy robbery

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at some point. So police began to question Mary Catherine's ability to even be an eyewitness

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because she could not make a direct connection to Richard Reese from the night that Elizabeth

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disappeared. So it sounds to me like they wanted Reese to be the one, right? Right. Scapegoat again.

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Hmm. There you go. Well, on August 3rd of 2002, Reese suffered a medical emergency

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and possibly a brain aneurysm while he was in police custody because Beth, if you have seen

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any of the videos of his police interrogations, to me, I did not feel like he would have been

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involved in this. He was very adamant that he was innocent. He went nowhere near that girl.

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And he was just visibly getting upset just from the police questioning him and he's maintaining

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his innocence. So he did suffer a medical emergency and police just continued to keep him as their

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prime suspect, even though the entire time while he was being interrogated, he never once said that

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he did anything to Elizabeth. Well, Richard ended up being placed on life support and died three days

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later. That's sad. Yeah. Well, the sadder part is that the police would not let Richard's wife see

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him while he was in the hospital because they did end up admitting that Reese just wasn't smart

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enough to pull anything like that off. Oh, that's too bad. Well, during the same month in August of

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2002, just eight weeks after Elizabeth disappeared, someone ended up breaking into her cousin's house

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at 2 30 in the morning, Beth. That is really eerie. Exact same time. And related to Elizabeth. Yes.

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Well, Elizabeth's uncle, Stephen Wright, heard a loud crash that night. And when the police got

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there, they had found two chairs piled up back to back just like they saw over at Elizabeth's house

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when she was abducted. No. Yep. And the police felt that because of the situation, it had to be a

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copycat. Well, it doesn't have to be a copycat. I mean, we're talking about the same family and

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I don't think it's a copycat. Do you think it's too much of a coincidence though? Yes, that I do.

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Well, the police thought it was a copycat, but the family believed that it was the same person

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that broke in to take Elizabeth. And I can understand that for sure. Yeah, that's what I

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would guess too. All right. So we are rolling up to day 90 in September of 2002. Police continued

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to follow hundreds of leads, including motorcycle gangs, white collar crime, psychic leads,

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devil worshipers, sex crimes, internet predators, and all of these leads added up to about 150 per

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hour. Wow. So 90 days in Beth, they had over 39,000 leads that they had to follow with how big was the

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police force in Salt Lake City, Utah. Yeah, that's a great number, isn't it? I don't know if they

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brought the 2000 volunteers in to help them with this, but I'm sure they could only do so much.

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Right. Can we talk about psychic leads for a moment? I would love to. Yeah. What are your

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thoughts on psychic? I believe Beth, to a certain extent that people have that, would you call it a

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sixth sense? I don't think it's a sixth sense. I'm a full believer. I did see a psychic and

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when it was shortly after dad passed away and I wanted to know if he was around, but without

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saying anything, she said, well, right now there's a man here and he's rubbing his head.

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Wow. And I thought to myself, oh my gosh, or as my dad would say, good golly, good golly,

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because my father did have a bald head and he had a habit of putting his hand on his head and rubbing

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his head. Oh my gosh. And he said through the medium that he was sorry that he didn't have

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enough money for us girls. He knew we were all in need at the time. Oh. And I felt bad for that.

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And, but it was a very interesting experience. Well, I would be interested in going one day.

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That would be kind of one of those things. You see the sign for these people and then do you ever

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really stop? I go to ones that are reputable. This one lady, the reason I went to her because she had

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a office right on the downtown strip. And if she was paying for an office and if she was there for

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her regulars, you know, she had to be good. Yeah, you're right. You have a point. I'll have to check

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that out one time. I've never done it. All right. So we're going to get to the eyewitness encounters.

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Not long after all of these leads started coming in, one of the Smarts neighbors was out on a bike

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trail in some woods just behind the neighborhood. I had mentioned a couple of minutes ago that the

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Smarts house was surrounded in trees. And so they had a bike trail that kind of ran around the

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neighborhood. And I feel like it was an area that a lot of people could go hiking or biking into the

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woods. Now, Mike saw a man come out of the woods at some point in time. This was 90 days later after

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Elizabeth's abduction. He had seen a man come out of the woods with two women trailing him. In the

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future, as we talk about the people that came out the woods, I'm actually going to say the trio,

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because there were three people, I just wanted to kind of set that up. And they were seen pretty

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frequently amongst eyewitnesses around town on any given day from that day forward. The trio was

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always wearing full robes. And the man had a very bushy beard while the women were wearing veils

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over their faces. Not something that you normally see every day on the streets. Another eyewitness

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saw the same man who he dubbed as Joseph just walking around town with the two women that wore

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the veils. At some point, this eyewitness made eye contact with the younger of the two women

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and all he could say when he saw her was that her eyes looked very sad. A third eyewitness saw

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the same trio out at a buffet style restaurant one night. And I guess at some point, obviously,

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if they're going to be eating dinner, they had to lift their veils. Well, this eyewitness stated

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that the younger female had to be a teenager. I am not sure at this point in time, how much

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news coverage this story is getting. I mean, it's been out there for 90 days now, but it's just

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something that maybe people don't think about absolutely every day. And maybe the sightings

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of these individuals, people weren't quite connecting the dots yet. On October 12,

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just four months after Elizabeth's abductions, authorities started to give up hope that they

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would ever see Elizabeth alive because there has been no activity. They were not able to ever really

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make any clear cut case on this. But, but that same day, Elizabeth's sister, Mary Catherine,

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had come to her dad with an epitome that she believed that she knew who the kidnapper was.

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So, wow, yeah, she's just doing her thing being a typical nine year old girl. And she all of a

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sudden had a memory. So she was just reading a book when the memory of this man just took over

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and she's like, Oh, I know who it is. So she came to Ed and told him dad, the name of the man that

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took Elizabeth, his name is Emmanuel. Well, Emmanuel was a homeless preacher that the smarts

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had hired for handiwork around the house just a few months earlier. Mary Catherine specifically

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told her dad, dad, it was that man that came to help on the roof. It was that homeless man

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from downtown. So I kind of want to back this up because Catherine approaches her dad four months

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after Elizabeth's abduction, because she just had this memory and backing up to Thanksgiving week

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of 2001. That was somewhere around six and a half months before Elizabeth was abducted. I kind of

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want to tell you this little story for just a minute because then it's going to all add up.

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Well, I had told you that Lois and Ed had six kids, right? Right. So they were out shopping one day,

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they were downtown in the Salt Lake area. They're basically doing their thing shopping for school

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clothes. And since the kids had so many different interests going on, well, Lois let the boys

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go pick out some clothes on their own in one area of the mall that they had gone to. And she just

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stayed with the girls. One of Elizabeth's brothers came back and told their mother that there was a

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man asking about work. So apparently they crossed paths when they separated, right? Right. Lois ended

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up making contact with this guy and gave him $5 in this conversation. Well, she mentioned that they

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did need some work done at their house. So she went home to talk to Ed about it. And Lois had asked

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the guy's name when she was leaving town and he had mentioned that his name was Emmanuel. Ed stated

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that both Mary Catherine and Elizabeth had probably five minutes interaction with Emmanuel one day

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when he did end up coming to the house to help work on the roof. So they probably came in off

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the school bus, headed up to do their thing in their room and probably made contact with this

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guy, Emmanuel for a total of five minutes, Beth. Wow. Only five. Yep. And Ed had said that he

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had given Emmanuel several days work, but he only showed up that very first day and did not return

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after that. But in the span of time though, you have to know that Emmanuel was probably inside

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the house, maybe taking a look around. And of course then at that point he may have known where

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all the windows and doors were. Exactly. Now Mary Catherine was interviewed again where she told the

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police that she had seen Emmanuel out in the streets, just as several eyewitnesses had already

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said the same thing. So while they were out in the boat, she saw him out in the streets, a street

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preacher. And she also thought that Emmanuel saw her and Elizabeth going up to their room the day

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that he had come to their house. So police took all this information with a grain of salt because

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remember I had told you that their number one suspect was Richard Reese. They continued to be

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skeptical of Mary Catherine, one because of her age and two, she was not following the line of who

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they thought the suspect was. And Emmanuel was not even on their list of subcontractors or contractors

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that had come to the Smarts house. How could that be? I don't know. That's a great question. I mean,

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if he was a homeless man, maybe it wasn't as easy to follow up with him like it was the other

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contractors. In the meantime, Mary Catherine said that she only thought he might be the voice behind

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who took Elizabeth. So the police are not really going with what Mary Catherine has to say. And

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she's just thinking that he might be that voice. Well, I mean, if you have an epitome, then I don't

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know, I feel like they kind of brushed her off a little too quickly. Well, police told Ed not to go

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public with this information. Even if it did generate leads, they felt like if they made

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Emmanuel public, then of course he's going to flee or at least go underground because remember,

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he's been spotted as a trio all over town at this point with two women. So he's freely walking

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around and nobody's thinking twice. I mean, they're looking at this odd trio and how they consider

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people should be dressed. Well, anything going on the news at that point, then that might scare him

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off. The smart family, however, didn't really like that idea that the police had asked them not to

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go public. Beth, again, this seems to be a trend because just in our last episode, the police told

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the family not to go public. Exactly. Yeah. Well, guess what? They did. Just like our last story,

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the smarts went public because they were not comfortable with the police's demeanor and

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decided that they were going to in their way, they decided that they were going to pursue this street

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preacher on their own. And that's pretty much where we're going to end this, Beth. I'm very

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anxious to hear the continuation. There is a lot of information going on in this case. I just

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really felt like I needed to give it justice. I wanted to talk first about the smart family

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and what they were going through in the first several months of Elizabeth's disappearance,

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because next week we're actually going to dig a little bit further into that man named Emmanuel.

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I'm very intrigued and I'm going to be very interested to hear all about this Emmanuel.

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Was that a good stopping point? Yeah. You know what? I think it's because I didn't read this

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ahead of time. I was very intrigued. I mean, I'm always intrigued, but everything became as a

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surprise to me because it's been so many years. Okay. So this was a good one. Good. Hey, teachable

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moment. Okay. Go ahead and ask me. So Deb, what's our teachable moment for this week?

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Okay. Teachable moment. You know, regardless on how old we are, Beth, we all have our own memories.

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I think that we just need to give kids a little bit more credit than what we do. Always that when

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we were growing up, we always had that be seen and not heard. Well, in today's age, especially with

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the storylines that we talk about every week, Beth, I think it's pretty important that we do listen to

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the children. We do need to take the information when a child has enough courage to approach an

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adult with any type of information, especially this type. You know, we are trusted adults. We

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teach our kids to trust adults. So we need to respect the fact that they're taking the courage

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to come forward. Yes. I think that children should be understood and listened to more than they are.

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Absolutely. So I think that's my teachable moment for the week is that we need to let the voices be

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heard. Okay. Well, with that being said, thanks for listening to our podcast Dying to be Found.

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And before we go, we would love for you to leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. Beth and

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I are trying to deliver you the stories that we believe that you can relate to. So if you like

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our show, consider buying us a coffee at buymeacoffee.com slash dying to be found spelled just like you see it on

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our logo and feel free to leave a comment on that page so that we know what we can do better. And

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also be sure to follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest at dying the number two,

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the letter B found, and we will talk to you next Thursday. And that's a wrap. That is a wrap. Toodaloo.

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Toodaloo. I'm leaving that in just so you know, because that was so freaking cute.